Waldeinsamkeit
by Lady Heliotrope
Summary: Midway upon the journey of his life, Severus Snape found himself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost. But he was not long left alone as a shade in the woods. Hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

**Canto I  
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Gazing out the window of the place, away from the horror of the moment, he could not distinguish where the green of the trees and the brown forest floor became separate; nor where the juniper-branches and other conifer-boughs melted into the oblivion of the sky.

All was dark and silent, in the_ mezzo del cammin_ of Severus Snape's life, though he thought it a welcome respite from the cacophonous eons of yesteryear, which he spent as a lone doctor dwelling in a land of plague.

The sight of his mortal shell on the floor of that hellish building known as the Shrieking Shack made him recoil; the amount of blood he'd left made him feel the woe of seeing his miserable life's pathetic magnum opus.

He felt guilt, too, for feeling that he looked like a martyr, for feeling that he looked like Christ.

But further reflection left him transformed; he was still present, and thus it seemed that his personal myth was unended. He thought it was because he was Sisyphus, and the inevitable sob of not wanting to start again rose in his throat.

Thereupon it was that he realized that if the boulder was to be pressed into his hands once more, at least for the starting climb he was not alone-the disenfranchised shadow side of Ravenclaw's wisdom, the delicate, loving, and good dove of naivete, was at the window of the shack, her fragile hands and ethereal tresses shining in the moonlight, as white and indefatigably elegant as a patronus.

She motioned for him to come forth from his retreat of happenstance, and Snape, with meekness born of shock, bent to her authority.

"How long have you been here?" Luna Lovegood asked of him, as unfazed by his presence in the garb of a ghost as she was unfazed by Thestrals, "And are you all right?"

"I can't answer either of your questions," he said, his voice stifled by the lacerations of Nagini's fangs that he still felt in his neck. "I'm just tired."

"I'm not surprised," she said with the empathy for which she was begrudgingly admired by him, "you have been running for so long on so little."

"You don't know me," he said with some bitterness, lacking the energy to snarl because she was so right. "I'd prefer you kept about your own business. Go fight for your life. Leave mine be."

"It's all over," she said, with an air of disinterest, "now we are looking for the lost."

He realized then that there were bodies in the vicinity, neatly laid to rest with their eyes closed (if their faces were intact) and their hands over their hearts.

A burning feeling of dreadful anxiety began to worm in his abdomen.

"That is to say, _we_have won?" he asked, unsure whether to align himself with the joy of victory or the woe of having his ego disassembled. Had he been so transparent as to show his true loyalties, in moments of unwatchfulness with his students?

"I always knew you were on our side," said Luna, and her radiant, cold eyes made confident contact with his. A surreptitious glance at the surface of her mind-the inveterate Occulmens' habit-revealed nothing. She was a blank slate.

"You do say," he replied, as sarcastic as he could manage when in the situation of feeling his needles sink into a nonresistant, unharmable sponge.

"Yes," she said, and paused to chant a gentle blessing over the body of an acromantula, which caused it to shrink into dust. "So," she said when she finished, "what do you want to do now?"

"Does 'now' matter?" asked Severus, falling into the role of the fatalist because he knew she could bolster him up again. "Isn't my life over? There's nothing else I can do on this green earth."

He thought it ironic that the earth was so green, Slytherin green, and he'd never felt like he fit into his house, much less the world at large.

"There's at least one thing you can do," she said, not looking at him.

"And what is that, pray tell?" he answered, hostile but only because he was frightened.

"Find peace," she said, pausing to adjust her sandal.


	2. Chapter 2

**Canto II  
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"Find peace," she said, pausing to adjust her sandal.

He saw her in that moment like Hermes, for the buoyancy of her step and the grace of her demeanor made him feel as abashed as a man caught naked by a message-bearing god. Did her beatific presence portend good or evil, however?

"And if I try and find that peace does not exist?" he asked, by habit of being contrary and ornery.

"If you really intend to try, you will find it. Unless you are plagued by blue frunklings instead."

She was ministering to a dead bird, perhaps one of the beautiful, magical nightingales that swept through the darkness of the Forbidden Forest. "Poor thing," she whispered, "it didn't know what side it was on when, shaken from its home in the brush, it entered this battlefield. It was alone in its last, frightful flight."

Kneeling in the pooling moonlight, Luna Lovegood embodied her name, tracing shapes with her wand that Severus recognized to be diagnostic healing spells. A cry of delight came from her lips, as sudden and natural as a drop of dew landing on the petal of a violet, and she peered more closely at her frail patient.

"Never mind," she said with a blossoming whimsey, "it's only been hit by a stunner."

So saying, she freed the incapacitated creature from its paralysis. It struggled for a moment, weary and hesitant on its feet, but mere moments passed and it leaped into the air, as vibrant and strong as Pegasus.

_Such true and natural gentleness is rare in human beings_, Severus thought to himself, and no sooner did the idea manifest in his mind than she turned towards him to smile. _But the greater the good side, the greater the shadow side. What evil lurks in her heart that she tries to atone for?_

He remained silent, moved but unmoving, having nothing to say and less to do. The Ravenclaw was not thus afflicted; she breezily called forth her patronous (a hare) and sent it skipping away with the instructions to lead the body-collecting party to their place.

When she had finished, she looked to her former Professor with the lucid eyes of the somewhat mad and suggested, "Should we find a place to be for awhile? I think I'd like to read some Virgil."


	3. Chapter 3

**Canto III**

When she had finished, she looked to her former Professor with the lucid eyes of the somewhat mad and suggested, "Should we find a place to be for awhile? I think I'd like to read some Virgil."

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. It was delightful that he had, even in his deceased state, nerves with which to feel. "Is that a metaphor? There's only so much abstraction that an individual can take."

"True," she replied, "there is the feeling sometimes that if one gets too caught up in things that don't exist, one mightn't exist either."

She then extended her hand towards him, suggesting that he take the connection as a stronghold to reality.

"You cannot touch me," he said, feeling some pain in his heart because _damn it_, he wanted desperately to be close to someone at the present moment. Even if that closeness was only a hand, and even if that someone were as unfathomable and mystical as Luna Lovegood.

"Try," she said, unperturbed.

With the knowledge that seeking anything solid or tangible was a quest in futility, he extended his hand and grasped. As he expected, he did not feel her flesh; the sensation was like reaching out to touch a dream-image, and there was the sense that his perceptions of the somber trees and delicate dry grass were hallucinatory.

But what he did feel, as his fingers passed through the marble-white palm of her open hand, was a strange, glowing pulse of vitality, as subtle and welcome as the most devilish and attractive whispers of Satan.


	4. Chapter 4

**Canto IV**

But what he did feel, as his fingers passed through the marble-white palm of her open hand, was a strange, glowing pulse of vitality, as subtle and welcome as the most devilish and attractive whispers of Satan.

This frightened him, and he withdrew with the intent of keeping his integrity, though the brief euphoria was ravenously desired as soon as it dissipated.

His emotions, while fleeting, must have been betrayed by his face, but Luna just smiled with the complacency of the ever-knowing divine.

She did not let her hand falter or her fingers recoil, though he knew that she must have felt the chill that he had himself experienced frequently in his many years at Hogwarts-the familiar but unsettling absence of warmth that came when a ghost whisked through him on its way to an unknown destination with unknowable motives, neither of which time or mortals could touch.

"It's almost endothermic," she stated with great patience, "I give you some of my life-energy. Haven't you ever wondered why some of the ghosts of Hogwarts choose to linger in crowded halls?"

This had never occurred to him; he presumed that it was the shades' indifference to the existence of mortals that rendered them ambivalent to the presence of students in their path.

"It's why they haunt places with people, you know," Luna continued softly. Then she laughed, "I'm such a silly goose. Of course you know this; you taught us Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Severus Snape would not admit that, in fact, he did not know this; his obsession had always been with the werewolf, that mysterious creature of the night with the uncontrollable fate to destroy all that approached it, even those that approached it with love.

For this trait he reviled the werewolf above all things, perhaps because he deeply feared that this creature's schizoid essence bore similarities to that of his soul.

Thus filled with litost, a sudden feeling of agony brought about by his acknowledgement of this sad paradigm, he remembered that the moon above, while nearing the point of its setting, was at the cusp of its first quarter.

He had nine long days of hell before the night of the next full moon.

"How did Remus Lupin fare in this battle?" he asked, expecting a tale of vindication and glory for the last of the Marauders.

This was the first time Luna displayed significant emotion in the entirety of their exchange; she drew in her breath and whispered, "You will miss him."


	5. Chapter 5

**Canto V**

This was the first time Luna displayed significant emotion in the entirety of their exchange; she drew in her breath and whispered, "You will miss him."

Taken aback, Snape besought his reason to define his emotive state. But the rational Athena had nothing to say, and the Greek authors of archetype, being the champions of reason, had never known or cared what kind of second child Metis was to bear Zeus.

Thus, Severus did not know that he should be pleading to the unborn and unacknowledged younger brother of Athena, the intuitive Diaisthisos. Because of the ancient oversight, there were no members of Severus' inner parliament that could suggest how he should mourn the last of the Marauders. So he did not, despite feeling a strange sense of guilt about it.

"No, I won't. Serves him right," he said lowly, though he could not help but remember his own urgent effort to save Lupin, at risk of his own hide, during the battle of far-too-many Potters. He still did not know what to think about this except that it had been his duty to try and prevent the death of the one man who actually could love Lily's boy unreservedly.

"Not everyone who hurts other people is evil," Luna suggested, absentmindedly twisting a ringlet around her finger five times. Before Severus could express his outrage and affirm that Lupin, as far as he could see, had developed _few _if any redeemable qualities since his first day at Hogwarts, as lithe as a water-nymph she had smoothly leaped away to another mental stepping-stone. "Do you know what the French chess players do with poly-ponies?"

In his state of irritation, this question, absurd in most circumstances, was far too esoteric for Snape, who just scowled at her.

"Excuse me, but do you know?" she asked, and he, in his best imitation of an angry poly-pony (whatever that was) flared his nostrils haughtily.

"I wonder why no one will tell me." This idea perplexed her for the briefest of moments, but she brightened again and cast her eyes upon him. "Maybe I'm mistaken, and it actually has to do with French cellists. The flobberworm who told me about it spoke an unusual dialect."

As she mentioned flobberworms, her luminescent eyes reminded him of a newt's, and he briefly considered filleting her for potions ingredients.

"But I understood most of the story as he told it to me," she continued, turning her head to look at the moon. "It was a sad tale. Since I do not like telling sad tales, I will tell it to you in a happy way."

"I don't want to hear it," said Snape, who did not think himself enough of a martyr to wade through such a story, especially when told to him by her.

"There was a French Something, a poly-pony, and an ugly duckling," said Luna, not paying him much attention. "The ugly duckling was deeply enamored with the poly-pony. I expect it was because the poly-pony thought the ugly duckling was actually handsome, in a rustic, wild, intense sort of way, and they had been friends for a long time."

The way she framed her tale actually caught Snape's attention, as an individual whose well-meaning mother would give him Hans Christian Anderson to read after his father yelled at him for looking like a snivelling little coward who should just go out in the cold white woods of winter and stay there.

Was Luna Lovegood just dotty, or was she giving him an impromptu lesson on morality?

"Don't go on," he insisted, raising his hand and pressing it against his bowed forehead.


	6. Chapter 6

**Canto VI**

"Don't go on," he insisted, raising his hand and pressing it against his bowed forehead.

"My story is very short, and it isn't so sad if one tells it with words that have the syllable-sound 'ee,' which helps the wrackspurts at bay," she replied, all of a sudden twirling on one sandaled foot in a fairylike pirouette, ending in a curtsey that lead her to notice something interesting on the ground, whereupon she merely stood there, gazing in fascination.

"Is there a commonsensical _reason_ for...this?" He shook his head and crossed his arms, then tossed her a rotten apple of discord. "It is interesting to me that having frivolous conversation with a ghost beyond repair is more important than helping your wounded _friends_," he snarled.

Luna Lovegood, he decided, was Athena's nemesis, the bastion of irrationality, a Bacchante sprung from the piercing of Dionysus' thrysus into the ground.

"There is much in the way of krittleore in this area," she observed without acknowledging his criticism, ever the naturalist. "It's so good for the loresh flowers when it's autumn. I wonder if they used to hang people in this clearing. Or perhaps they cured Glurgiddy meat here."

She began to look at the trees above them, as though trying to discern which oak was the best for either a noose or meat hook, and Snape's patience was destroyed.

"You are impossible, Miss Lovegood," he said, turning fully away with the intent of disapparating, though to where he did not know.

"You're _right,_" she immediately replied, her voice pregnant with profundity. "I _am _impossible."


	7. Chapter 7

**Canto VII**

"You're _right,_" she immediately replied, her voice pregnant with profundity. "I _am _impossible."

Fascinated with the macabre, as a masochist, he paused, almost eager to see the horrifyingly bizarre way she had misinterpreted his harsh words.

She went beyond his expectations by leaping backwards into the air and hanging there, via what he supposed to be a _levicorpus_.

Odd, that she was seemingly capable of enacting the spell while her wand remained tucked behind her ear, odder still the uncomfortable feeling of his that he could not recall some devastating experience he had in which he was also upside-down.

It was probably one of the many bad memories he had extracted and hidden away in bottles to make his tenure as the Head of Hogwarts more endurable, and he felt a sudden pang of fear that someone might uncover them, locked away though he knew they were.

"I _am_ impossible," Luna went on sweetly, methodically counting her points on her fingers, "for it is impossible that I should exist. It strikes me as too great of a coincidence that all these things in me...fire, water, earth, air...should come together of their own accord and create something as un-fire, un-water, un-earth, and un-airlike as me. At least, unless such a thing were an anomaly. But since there are so many other people on earth, I presume I am _not _an anomaly, so that means that something has compelled these elements-"

"-Miss Lovegood," Snape said, the combination of his fear at being reminded of his vulnerability and his impatience for her antics manifesting in his long-suffering tone, "this is far from appropriate behavior."

Something about watching his former student make cavalier use of a spell that had, at some point, caused him much pain, made him feel strange. He felt like Prometheus, who had suffered much for the sake of fire, watching a child light a candle for a doll's tea-party. This was beside the fact that there was a certain discomfort at the idea that her skirt might, at any moment, respond to the pull of gravity and give him a view he did _not _want to behold.

"I would agree with you, Professor," Luna Lovegood said, quite successfully living up to her nickname 'Loony,' "except for the fact that I suspect your frown is an honest one. If you were happy and frowning, then I would not question what you just said." Her gaze upon him was one of a knowing mother, albeit upside down. "Then again, from where I am, your frown looks more like a smile."

This was a disconcerting position for Severus to be in, and before he could think of something better subject for conversation, the words spilled out of his mouth, "Where did your story go?"

She seemed to have lost interest in her narrative, however, and she just shrugged, her dirigible-plum earrings jangling and her wand falling lightly to the ground. "I don't remember. I do think a hungry Whisterfingle has got it."

Before he could express his opinion on the existence of Whisterfingles, she went on, "But my father, he used to go and study the Legriv people of long ago. He told me that their storytellers used to say, 'the way the twig is bent, that is the way the tree inclines.' Though what do you think that means?"

She paused, but he returned her look of askance with a stony glare, so after a brief moment, she asked, "Could you pick up my wand, please? I think it's time we return to the castle."

He did not think twice about returning it to her hand, though he said, in a reactionary fashion under his breath, "Some trees have _many_ crooked twigs, pointing every which way, and thus the trees do not know which direction to lean."

"I suppose by twigs, he meant branches," Luna said, landing on all fours but springing up again like a cat.


	8. Chapter 8

**Canto VIII**

"I suppose by twigs, he meant branches," Luna said, landing on all fours but springing up again like a cat.

He could not tell what she meant by _that_; she was a sphinx and he was not Oedipus.

She cast a delicate charm over the bodies she had collected, covering them with a beautiful illuminated cloak of light to make them easy to see in the darkness, then waited for him to appear ready to go back with her. As if he ever _would _be ready to go back to Hogwarts.

"I don't want to return to the castle," he said, sounding more like a petulant child than he wished.

"Then I think I'll stay with you, to keep you company. This forest, while beautiful, is lonely."

He resented it very much that he could not tell whether she was saying such a thing just to manipulate him or if she truly was acting with his best interests at heart.

As if reading his mind, she stepped close to him and pressed her hand into his for a brief moment, and the resulting euphoria, combined with the deep despondency that overwhelmed him when she moved away, further confirmed his bewilderment.

He felt no need except that of following her as she gestured for him to come along, gaily beginning to wend her way out of the forest. The pangs of compulsion to touch her, to usurp her life-energy, were growing within him, which left him feeling more bitter and isolated as he realized the depth and breadth of the post-mortal chill within his soul.

Being a man of some conscience, by principle he would not allow himself to steal from her, though it drove him mad that such a source of warmth and solace was so close.

He felt so hollow, and as he looked at her walking-nay, she was _skipping_-ahead of him, all he could think of was how warm and vibrant she appeared.

_This is how people become possessed by malevolent ghosts,_ he decided, _ghosts who are unable to resist the infinite craving for life. It is right to exorcise such a parasitic coward, who feeds himself on delusions._

While he had just recently experienced his first taste of the forbidden fruit from the tree of life, the lingering poison still tainted his veins from his ancestors' taste of the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Thus he judged, without realizing his words were mostly interjectory and for his own moral benefit.

With understanding the source of wretchedness that came from being the imprint of a departed soul, he felt the grave certainty that he was _supposed_ to feel wretched, a knowledge not unusual to him. His customary response to this was to scream at the gods to give him more weight to bear.

But as they walked, Luna asked him for his thoughts, and he voiced them with carefully-chosen words that, he noticed in retrospect, were misrepresentively less dark.

"I am thinking that this existence is very different from that of being alive."


	9. Chapter 9

**Canto IX**

"I am thinking that this existence is very different from that of being alive." He felt like the understatement was less because of mistrusting her than because of wanting to keep the darkness of his soul from putting a damper on the pretty, lively creature that was, strangely, showing him what seemed to be kindness.

No doubt she wanted something from him, as did anyone who was kind to him for any duration of time, but he knew Luna Lovegood's motives tended to be a little less orthodox, so he was intrigued.

"That is no surprise," the girl answered without hesitation. "Probably, Professor, it is so different because you still have much to learn, and the powers that be do not want you to become confused."

The idea that he had not learned _enough_ in his difficult lifetime insulted him, but he let it pass because the idea that he might become bewildered about anything irked him considerably more. Severus Snape had confidence that nothing, if he had reason on his side, should bewilder him, so he asked, "Confused about what, pray?"

"Well, I think that some in your position might confuse your immortality with divinity. There are a great many grown Ramscore-Flunnies that become ghosts after their passing, and oh, if you saw them swarm around a living Ramscore-Flunnie nest you would know what I mean."

This explanation provided little in the way of a tangible example to Snape, which made him want to shriek at her with anger at her nonsense. The years had taught him and the past hour had reminded him, however, that she was incapable of responding in the usual human ways to his anger, and that his breath was better saved for Longbottom, who could not so easily diffuse wrath.

Moreover, the innocence in her voice made him wonder anew, as he had wondered for years, if Hagrid were teaching the children this sort of thing, or if it was just the temperament of Luna.

Ultimately, as he beheld the waxing moon fading into the sky as it set, it was probably just her.

"Why did you come so far to look for the dead, alone?" he asked, knowing as soon as he asked the question that her answer would only serve to bewilder him.

"I'm not alone," she stated, her celestial eyes luminous and feline as they wandered over the moorish terrain.


	10. Chapter 10

**Canto X**

"I'm not alone," she stated, her celestial eyes luminous and feline as they wandered over the moorish terrain. "Moreover, I have often found that those who have passed away are the best company."

"Do tell me about when you've previously had the occasion to entertain those bound to an empty world for eternity," asked Snape, his sarcasm more self-pitying and bitter than accusatory. Sisyphus was a man, not a wild robin dropping dead from a bough and incapable of feeling sorry for itself.

"I'm great friends with Myrtle, with whom I'm sure you are acquainted," said the girl, her features becoming soft with woe. "What a terrible time she had. But she mightn't like if I told you about her problems."

"Not at all, she can_ scarcely_ bring herself to utter the dark secrets of her soul," replied the deceased potions-master with airy sardonicism.

"And then there's my mother," continued the girl without acknowledging his comment, a result of her being as apparently fair of heart as Themis or Dike of yore. "She lingered after she passed, though now that my father is gone to be with her, they are undoubtedly rolling together in the Elysian fields."

Snape was caught off-guard enough to stop; his moodiness at having not received the perceptionless peace of death that he thought he deserved left him, and he was abashed. This gentle, light-footed being before him had just lost her father, and yet she was traipsing around like a healing nymph?

"Oh, you don't need to tell me you're sorry," Luna said, stopping and looking at him with deep understanding in her eyes. "You are too much pain at the moment to mean it as much as you wish you did."

The girl had an acute sense of _something_, Severus realized, though it wasn't precisely intellect. He began to try and respond, but quickly came to the conclusion that he had nothing worthwhile to express, it being that her simple diagnosis was so accurate.

Seeing his desire to be known, Luna Lovegood regarded him with fond attention. "If you would like to say something, why don't you mention something that you think is beautiful?" she suggested, a lopsided, dimpled smile rising on her face. "I think that Rainbow-Anglers are beautiful."


	11. Chapter 11

**Canto XI**

"If you would like to say something, why don't you mention something that you think is beautiful?" she suggested, a lopsided, dimpled smile rising on her face. "I think that Rainbow-Anglers are beautiful."

She looked at him when he remained sullen and stern, and he could not tell if she realized that she had set before him a task as Herculean as that of cleansing the Augean Stables. Much in the way of fecal muck would have to be eradicated from his psyche before he could recognize something he found _beautiful_, at least something besides Lily Evans-and he was not sure how he might, if he even wanted to, tell Luna Lovegood about the woman he worshiped.

"Fruelapp-Dewbell fairies are beautiful," said the girl, approaching him where he stood with a tentative step, as meek and patient as if she were approaching a wild fox, or (more likely) the untamed Crumple-Horned Snorkack.

"What sort of childish game are you playing at, Miss Lovegood?" he asked of her, feeling like a child of Eve watching the original sin occur from the confines of his playpen.

"Redtop Flingles are beautiful, too." She advanced again by a step, and his inclination was to retreat in turn. This did not seem to distract her, and indeed she just smiled more broadly in her detached manner, announcing, "Sour Chippendrats' pearls are also things I would call beautiful."

A prolonged yawn seized her at this moment, and she indulged in a leisurely rubbing of her eyes, whereupon she appeared as childlike and innocent as Cupid, though Severus knew that she must be twice as devious.

"Even the rather bothersome Wrackspurts...ahh..." (she yawned again) "have their moments of beauty, in certain circumstances."

"Kindly confine your idealizations to a minimum, if you cannot at least refer to things that actually exist," Severus snapped. Watching her spirit soar like Icarus into the sky of the unknown, he experienced some trepidation, fearing that she might get too close to the sun and allow her wax wings to melt...and cause his to fall apart, too, no matter the height at which he followed her.

"Of course, Professor; I never would think of talking about things being beautiful if I'd never seen them," the girl replied, and she sank down into a squat, where she brushed at the ground to "warn the rittyglomplers" before she sat lotus-style.

All that Snape could do was pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration and turn away from her, exasperated at not knowing if she were truly serious or merely playing games with him.

"So tell me, Professor, what you think is beautiful?" she prodded again, and indeed she was physically prodding him in the back of the leg with a long stick, though he did not realize it until he faced her once more, for he could not feel anything more than a twinge of disturbance on a cellular level.

"You are not making this adjustment any easier for me," he stated bluntly.


End file.
